Key Takeaways
- Manual order entry is a growth bottleneck - It wastes time, causes errors, and frustrates both employees and customers.
- 11% of revenue is lost annually by businesses that haven’t automated their order processing.
- Manual processes lead to real consequences: employee burnout, fulfillment delays, inventory errors, and poor customer experiences.
- True automation eliminates data entry, enabling faster order fulfillment, fewer mistakes, and lower operational costs.
- Automating order entry isn’t just for large enterprises - solutions like Blue Link ERP offer built-in automation tools that are practical and scalable.
- Integration is key - systems like Blue Link ERP + OrderEase connect your sales channels with back-end operations to streamline everything.
- Start small - use a three-step framework: audit your current process, identify automation-ready tasks, and run a pilot project.
- An all-in-one ERP transforms operations by syncing inventory, generating POs and invoices, triggering shipping, and updating CRM records in real time.
- Automation pays off with better data, faster decisions, reduced costs, and a stronger foundation for growth.
Order entry is the heartbeat of any wholesale or distribution business, but for too many growing companies, it’s still tangled in manual steps. Some of them include manually typing email and PDF orders into order entry systems, tracking inventory in spreadsheets, and chasing email confirmations across multiple inboxes.
This kind of patchwork might work when order volume is low, but it quickly becomes a bottleneck. Eventually, it will lead to missed shipments, incorrect product data, frustrated employees, and even a revenue loss.
In fact, 11% of potential revenue is lost each year by businesses that haven’t automated their order processing workflows. And a recent study of U.S.-based IT professionals reveals that over half of organizations (62%) are still using outdated systems that weren’t designed for modern sales operations.
This is a growth issue.
So, how do you improve order processing in a way that’s practical, scalable, and doesn’t blow your budget? It starts with the right kind of automation and a system built to support it.
In this post, we’ll discuss the risks of staying manual, the real-world benefits of automating order entry, and how to take the first steps with tools that actually work.
Manual Order Entry Is Holding You Back
Manual order entry might feel manageable - until it isn’t.
At first, it’s just a few emailed orders a day. Then, a bump in demand turns into late nights transcribing PDFs, re-entering data from your eCommerce platform into your accounting software, and manually flagging what’s low in stock. Before long, you’re relying on sticky notes and spreadsheets to keep everything moving. That’s not helping you scale.
And the cost isn’t just time. It’s real money.
According to industry data, 36% of employees have considered leaving a role due to poor technology. When teams are forced to manage growing order volume with outdated tools and disjointed systems, burnout follows fast. Add in shipping errors, incorrect invoices, and slow turnaround times, and you’ve got unhappy customers, too.
There’s also the less visible toll:
- More staff are needed just to handle order processing.
- Delayed fulfillment as teams chase down missing details.
- Inventory errors can lead to overstocking or stockouts.
- Customer service issues arise from orders that fall through the cracks.
Even as expectations rise with same-day shipping, real-time order tracking, and consistent multi-channel fulfillment, manual order entry pulls businesses in the opposite direction. It creates friction instead of flow. And it’s one of the first areas where automation makes a measurable impact.
If your sales order software cannot keep up with your business’s growth, it’s time to reevaluate.
Sales Order Software That Does the Work for You
Not all sales order software is created equal. At a glance, most systems will claim to “streamline” or “simplify” your operations. But what does that really mean?
If your team is still entering the same data in multiple systems or chasing down orders from emails, PDFs, and marketplace dashboards, you’re not streamlining anything. You’re working around your software, not with it.
True automation means eliminating repetitive tasks, not just making them faster. It’s about removing manual input entirely so your team can focus on high-impact work instead of data entry.
For example:
- A customer places an order through a PDF attachment in an email.
- The order is automatically pulled into your ERP.
- Inventory levels are updated in real time.
- A sales order is created, and fulfillment is triggered - no copy/paste required.
This is exactly what happens with Blue Link ERP + OrderEase integration. When systems talk to each other and handle the work behind the scenes, you get a workflow that runs itself and keeps your data accurate across every channel.
How Do You Improve Order Processing? Automate It
Automating order entry transforms the entire workflow. Instead of manually creating POs, keying in customer data, double-checking inventory, and emailing confirmations, your system does it for you automatically, reliably, and without the risk of human error.
But beyond efficiency, automation pays off in ways that directly affect your bottom line:
Faster Order Fulfillment
When orders move seamlessly from multiple sales channels into your ERP and then to your warehouse, nothing gets stuck in limbo. You get orders out faster and meet the kind of customer expectations Amazon helped create.
Fewer Mistakes
Manual entry means manual errors. One wrong digit can delay a shipment or send the wrong item out the door. Automation eliminates those slip-ups by syncing real-time, accurate data between systems.
Lower Operational Costs
With automation in place, your team isn’t stuck inputting orders, correcting mistakes, or curating spreadsheets. That means you can handle more volume without hiring more people and avoid costly delays, returns, and corrections.
Better Data and Smarter Decisions
Automated systems process and collect cleaner data faster. With that, you can track performance, forecast demand, and make proactive decisions based on real-time information.
As we shared in our Next-Gen Growth: Leveraging Automation in Growing Business Operations webinar, many businesses think automation comes with massive costs or months-long timelines. But as we explained, that’s a common misconception. The real cost is sticking with manual processes that eat up resources and limit your ability to grow.
You don’t have to automate everything at once. With a solution like Blue Link ERP, many automation tools come built in. That means you can start small, automate what matters most, and expand from there.
Where to Start? A Simple Framework for Automating Order Entry
When you’re deep in the day-to-day of running a business, it’s easy to put off automation. After all, where do you even start?
Here’s the good news: You don’t need to overhaul everything overnight. The best approach is focused, realistic, and built to scale as you grow. Start with what’s slowing you down the most, then automate your way out of it.
Here’s a simple three-step framework to help:
Step 1: Audit Your Current Order Process
- Where are you (or your team) spending time repeating tasks?
- Where do errors tend to happen?
- Where are you losing visibility or duplicating data?
Talk to your employees. Find out what they’re redoing, chasing, or fixing on a regular basis. These bottlenecks are prime candidates for automation.
Step 2: Identify “Automation-Ready” Wins
Once you spot the pain points, look for high-impact areas that are ready for change. Order entry is a great place to start, especially if you’re juggling email, PDFs, eCommerce, and phone orders all at once.
Other common automation-ready tasks include:
- Sending invoices
- Processing returns
- Generating purchase orders
- Syncing sales and inventory data between systems
Step 3: Choose One Pilot Project
Don’t try to fix everything at once. Instead, focus on one specific workflow. For example, automating order entry from PDFs in email into your ERP.
By picking a single pilot, you can test, measure, and refine your automation process. Once you see how much time and energy it saves, scaling becomes the obvious next step.
How an All-in-One ERP Can Help You
Too many businesses rely on disconnected tools: entry-level accounting software, separate inventory tracking systems, manual spreadsheets, and third-party plug-ins. These might work temporarily, but they add friction to every step of the order process. Nothing’s truly connected, and that means automation stays out of reach.
With a comprehensive ERP, the second an order is placed, everything is in motion.
Here’s what that looks like with Blue Link ERP:
- A sales order is created (manually or automatically via integration).
- Inventory is updated in real time across all channels.
- A purchase order is generated if stock is low.
- The invoice is created and sent.
- Shipping is triggered, and tracking information is captured.
- Customer data is updated in your CRM.
All of this happens in one system. There are no duplicate entries, no toggling between tools, and no breakdowns in communication between departments or systems.
And because Blue Link ERP is designed specifically for wholesale and distribution businesses, it comes with the kind of built-in functionality you actually need, like lot tracking, landed cost tracking, multi-warehouse management, and barcode scanning.
Plus, through trusted integration partners like OrderEase, Blue Link connects to eCommerce platforms, vendor portals, and marketplaces like Amazon, Shopify, and more, so your front-end sales channels sync seamlessly with your back-end operations.
As a result, you get more orders, fewer mistakes, faster fulfillment, lower costs, less employee burnout, and happier customers overall.
And because it’s built to scale, you’re not locked into the same setup. You’re free to grow.
